Welcome To My Life
by Cool Steve
Summary: [One shot] Time has taken its toll on Arnold, and no one, not even him, ever thought he would turn out like this.


**(Original Authors Notes)**

Sup peeps!  
No, I haven't totally disappeared from the realm of fan-fiction. I have come back with my brand new, totally out of the blue "I wrote it in one day" one-shot! But first, some notes…

The reason for my absence is not a story I'd like to retell. I was recently in car accident that was my fault, and it set me back A LOT. I was in debt for about two months, and was just totally screwed – and still sorta am till I get more money. I was already pretty down, but this accident brought me down into a much deeper depression. I had/have no money, and I work hard as a full time dishwasher at some restaurant for, in my opinion, shit pay. I have been there for over a year and have nothing to show for it. People that I contacted about this subject understand, and I really didn't want to live anymore.

I went to work on Saturday, Nov 20th for an evening shift, and I was _so_ down in the dumps. I hate my life, and I couldn't escape thoughts of death, about how much my life sucked – and it still does suck so. I got the idea for this fic, and wrote various ideas through the evening so I wouldn't forget. By the end of the shift I broke down, downstairs in the break room where my boss came to talk to me. Yeah, he rides my ass and is sometimes a DICK, but he is a good person. We sat there for an hour or so, and I cried, a lot, and let some stuff out – cause I just could not take it. I felt horrible when I left at 10pm, and broke down again in the car. I could not focus on anything, and driving in my state while dark and rainy was not wise, but whatever.

Anyway, I had to get gas and didn't have time to expand on this fic that night. I got busy on Sunday but I didn't want to get sidetracked. On Monday, Nov 22nd I started writing this fic. This story came so easily to me, it just flowed out as fast as I could type it. It's the closest thing I have ever written from my heart/feelings so far. Jae, you said yourself, build ideas on your own life experiences and boy did I ever create. This fic didn't seem as forced out as my "When Realities Collide" story (and for you dedicated readers, that will be updated again by the end of the year) where it seemed I just wanted to write a fic to prove that I could. In reference to some e-mails I exchanged with Silver Kitten, I also wanted to write a fic that was more real. So many HA! fics out there are all happy-lovey-dovey perfect life scenarios. I wanted to write a fic people could relate to – even though it's totally fiction. This wasn't the original idea I had, but it _does_ fit the bill. I was so committed with this story, and like how it turned out.

I tried to make it a song fic, but no song at the present time seemed to fit. Plus I really didn't come up with any good titles that would make it shine. Previously titles (tell me what you think of these, and give me new ones if you have them): Only The Lonely (The Motels), Deeper Into The Void, Falling Deeper & Deeper, Help, Too Much Time On My Hands (Styx). Then minutes before posting it, Simple Plan's new tune "Welcome To My Life" just shot through my brain. I checked out the lyrics, and they were pretty much bang on to my story. This is just a fic – but when I upload the story to my site I _may_ change it to a song fic…what do you think I should do? I added the lyrics at the end so you don't have to search for them.

Anyway, some things written in this fic reflect my real life, and some parts are made up – totally fiction. I _wish_ I had a girl like Helga, but sadly I am still alone. If the basis for fics is personal experience, then most of my fics are gonna be big downers…probably.

Timeline:  
Nov 22/23…11pm – 1am, rough copy, fast typing making lots of errors.  
Nov 23…8pm – 11pm, edit for spelling/story errors.  
Nov 24…9:15pm – 11:30pm, final triple check. I didn't want to rush this fic out, but if there are any errors, TELL ME!  
Nov 25…9:41am, wanted to upload my story to and everything was disabled! WTF! They said any pre-2003 entries might have been lost. So for shits and giggles I punched up page 45 in the HA! section and came across this angst fic totally by chance. "Soul Snuffed Out", by Cybra – 11/29/01. Wow, pretty depressing. What a match for this fic!  
Nov 26…9:19am & 5:37pm – couldn't upload again! When I tried to log in I kept getting this "503 Server Overload" thing! By now I am marjory pissed cause I really wanted to get this story out there!  
Nov 27…9:16am – uploading still disabled. Gonna stop writing timeline until fic gets posted.

**(New Authors Notes)**

Here I am, returning to this fic one year after I posted it. I felt obliged to come back to this story, as at the time of posting these new notes, I'm tying up online loose ends with my new computer and this fic was on my list; for me to read over it just to make sure it was error free. It was to my surprise that I had lost the original Word file in a shuffle of chaos when my laptop died in March 2005. At least now I have a copy of it of my hard drive.

I can't believe at the time of posting this message it had been a year since I wrote this fic. My how things have changed. I can't believe I was so depressed! I can't believe I wrote something so full of angst, and it's so well written its looks as if I'm reading someone else's work and not mine. I just sit back and shake my head in amazement and think to myself, "Wow, I was really pissed off back then, was I?" I'd hear the Simple Plan song "Welcome To My Life" on the radio, and I'd always think of my fic – now when I hear the song I can't stand the annoying lead singers whiny, long-strained vocals. I guess I've grown out of a certain phase in my life.

Now I'm 20, going 21 in 2006 – and feel my dark and gloomy teenage years are behind me, and I'm sure many others know what I am talking about. You rebel, you feel the world is against you, you have no purpose, you feel alone like no one can reach and understand you, etc. In some ways I'm still depressed about certain things, but man – I've come a long way from this story! I'm trying to live as I please right now, saving heaps of money when I can (I moved on to car dealing in April 2005), and always spending great amounts of time on my computer. I'm still single, but I'm okay with that – as I don't feel I have to validate myself to someone else's life. I know it said in the above notes the rest of my stories were going to be downers – well, I hope not. I have changed since then and am now a more reflective person on life. I just wanted to let you guys know I've grown up from the time of originally positing this fic, and I didn't want to leave a bad impression on my credit as an author to those of you who read this story and may think I'm a total mess with heavy emotional issues.

I've gotten better, and things are chugging along as well as I can expect them to at the moment. I'm looking forward to next year and what the year has in store for me. Thanks to all who supported me through my whole ordeal, in life and online, I'm truly grateful.

_Cool Steve, November 2005_

o----o

Time. It can never be stopped; it can never be turned back. It's the thing we never have enough of; it's the thing we sometimes have too much of. Time can heal all wounds, and yet it can let them bleed out.

Time had not faired well with one Arnold. It had left its mark on the now 19-year-old teen. Not marks that could be seen in the form of a visual abrasion, but mental and deep emotional scars that had changed the once bright-eyed day dreamer.

As time dragged on, Arnold matured – like everyone eventually does in his or her life. But soon that maturity made him see things in a different light. He started to be not so optimistic and naive to the world, and his kiddie-like happiness was beginning to leave him. But the hard blow that would start to morph Arnold would be the death of his only direct family he'd ever known, his grandparents. He lost Phil first at 86 from complications of his dementia and Gertrude followed two years later, most likely because of loneliness. After Pookie's death, Arnold – 16 – for the first time in his life could not muster all the strength in the universe to look on the bright side. What bright side was there? He got a shitty, minimum wage part time job at Chez Pierre as a part-time dishwasher and occasionally did some work at Green Meats. The frustrating balancing of work, school, and now being the head of a house full of boarders started to tear Arnold apart at all ends. His marks suffered and his teachers and fellow classmates got concerned, especially Helga. They wanted to help, but he just pushed them away. He soon started cutting off all social ties with anyone from high school. His cynical thinking made him sabotage his friendships, and he rarely attended social events. He started to get blind with jealously as everyone else around him seemed to have it better than him. He looked at his best pal Gerald and how things were going so well with Phoebe, and he couldn't take it – it was eating away at him. Arnold never officially dismissed Gerald as a friend, but they eventually drifted apart due to Arnold's lack of communication with anyone, and people soon thought of Arnold as a lost cause. All he did between his lackluster marks and work was sit and isolate himself away from the world in his room. He would spend hours upon hours on the computer, burying himself with files and mp3's and whatnot to try and take his mind off the world for a while.

Try as Arnold might to make ends meat, he just could not stay above the red. He slowly started to go in debt with the boarding house. The boarders gave as much as they could, in money and in emotional support for Arnold. But like Helga at her worst, he put up walls around him and just lived in his own world. No amount of support of his extended family could help him now. Arnold, torn with the thought of selling the boarding house had to proceed with doing so. The debt was growing bigger and bigger each day and the house started to get in a disarray of repairs. He reluctantly sold the boarding house, waving goodbye to his fellow boarders and his most prized hideaway…his room. He took one more look around in it the last day he was allowed on the property. He loved his room so much, and he had put so much work into it over the years…for all of it to come to this.

Arnold, now 18, had a small, cramped bachelor apartment in a less than desirable part of town. This place was no skylighted paradise. Its dark grey walls and one window view to a brick wall just dragged the poor boy lower and lower into what seemed to be an eternal void of despair. He had to sell many of his possessions to make the rent. Living paycheck-to-paycheck, almost never having enough money to live another month. He worked his ass off at his job as a dishwasher. When he could, he stole as many things as he could get his hands on. Toilet paper, plastic knifes and forks, any food related substance – anything. Everyday Arnold would come home, after a harsh day of school and even harsher day at work, to a gloomy, dark one-room place with no one to comfort him and say "Hello". He felt so alone. The one thing for him to escape reality, his computer, had to be sold. All Arnold had was his small transistor TV that picked up three channels. This is how he lived his life.

The seclusion from human touch, the depression and poverty cut Arnold like a dull and rusty knife. He kept asking himself why he was here on this earth. What _was_ his purpose? Just to live paycheck-to-paycheck in a small town where no one knew his name; and when you'd die they wouldn't find your body years later? He hated himself – he hated his life. He was stuck in the biggest rut of his existence and wondered why he was ever born. He wondered why the powers that be took his parents away from him just as a tender infant. He pondered how much of a different life he _could_ have had. But he was so blinded by unhappiness and rage for having no one that he even started hating his own, missing parents. "They should have never had me." he always thought. "Their line of work as always too risky to ever start a family." The biggest factor was their decision to leave Arnold on that trip back to the jungle. A plane ride that took his parents away from him forever, and he always plagued the never-ending questions in his mind of "what if" and "if only". He blamed them for getting on that flight. "They never should have left, what kind of parents would desert their only son!" he cried into a tear-stained pillow almost every night.

By the time Arnold was 19, he was in his last year of high school. He was on the verge of failing altogether and being forced to take another semester to get all of his credits. Years of being on his own made him cold and stale. He felt that he had no one – or so he thought. Helga had always been there for Arnold, like he was for her. She was always there in the background, closely monitoring her football head companion to see how he was managing. But after a while even Helga started to keep her distance as Arnold was falling deeper and deeper – and you can only fall so far. He started thinking about death everyday, and how it would be so much easier to just escape the hell he was going through – completely broke and barley making it in the world. He didn't know why he was still alive. It was like there was one string that was tugging at him, holding him on, telling him not to let go – and it was Helga. It seemed that fateful kiss that was planted on Arnold's lips ten years before was the only thing keeping him from suicide, as he knew deep down there _was_ someone out there he could reach out for, someone who went through some hard times herself. But he just couldn't reach out to her. His overwhelming hole of misery kept him just out of arms reach for being man enough to ask for help.

Arnold wasn't getting ahead, and every time it looked as if things may possibly get better, he was pushed back to his present murkiness. Like Curly, but far worse, he started to despise the government and "the man" for always slapping him down. His mind was clouded full of false info and mistruths. Arnold was confused, and in a state of perplexed anguish. He wrote a suicide note one day in class, not knowing if he was going to use it or not. When the bell rang he swiftly stuffed the note into his already crowded school bag and headed out the door. But the note fell out from a small-unzipped hole and the devoted eyes of Helga Pataki came across it as she bent down to tie her shoe. She read the letter in horror and feared that this was it. It was ironic; the most positive boy in the world – a decade later was on the verge of self-suicide.

After school was out, Helga immediately went over to Arnold's place to confront him about his disturbing note. She approached his door, and gave a quite knock. No answer.

"Arnold…" Helga started, "Arnold…it's me, Helga."

Still no answer.

"Please Arnold, let me in…I have to talk to you."

An annoyed grunt came from behind the apartment door and slow steps made its way to open it. He cautiously opened the door as far as the chain link lock would allow.

"Hi." Helga choked out.

"What?" he asked, his eyes bloodshot. You could tell he had many sleepless nights. Nights where he wished he would never wake up.

"Arnold, could I please speak with you…in private?"

"Fine." he grunted again, rolling his eyes as he unlocked the chain. Like a hunchbacked old man he made his way back to his recliner where he had been watching his TV. A pack of smokes and a can of cheap beer were on the floor beside.

Helga entered the unlit room, the only source of light projecting from the glowing of Arnold's small television. He sat slumped in his chair, with a dazed look in his eyes like he wasn't there in spirit, like his soul had already left him. She glimpsed at his baggy eyes. His once pricing emeralds that were full of hopes and dreams were now just a humble and miserable brownish swamp green.

Helga cut to the chase. "Arnold, I found this note today after you left class, it fell out of your bag." She unfolded the piece of small paper and held it in her hand.

Arnold, just slightly turning his head away from his TV, hastily grabbed the note away from her grasp, crumbled it up and tossed it to the ground. "Can't a guy have any privacy anymore?"

"Arnold, I'm worried about you." she said with a dry throat trying to hold back tears. "You've changed; you're not the person I once knew. I know he's still locked away in there somewhere, urging to get out and to be free again."

Arnold just scoffed and continued to watch his mediocre program.

"Arnold, what do I have to do to get through do you!" she almost yelled at him.

"Give me a million bucks," he said, "that would cheer me up."

"Arnold, money doesn't buy happiness, and if you believe that, you're…" Helga knew she had to choose her words carefully, "…you can't learn to enjoy life until you learn to love yourself."

Arnold got up from his recliner, now in a fit of fury.

"_Life_? _Love_! What kind of a life is this Helga! _Huh_? I ask you!" he yelled as projected his arm across the room. "This one-room, rat infested shit hole! How could I possibly love myself Helga, look at what I'm in!"

"You have to stop being so hard on yourself."

"Well, how the hell do you want me to be Helga?" he sarcastically barked as he paced around the almost empty room. "My only family that I ever knew died on me, and you knew it was only a matter of time. And even they could only do so much! They were so old that I just couldn't relate to them, and when Phil started to get dementia it went from bad to worse!"

"They did the best they could…" Helga peeped out.

He cut her off, still ranting while staring at the floor. "And the only true parents I had abandoned me, their own _flesh_ and _blood_, for some stupid tribe in some god-forsaken place on the other side of the world and left me totally _fucked_ for the rest of my life! I don't even remember them Helga!" He started to get teary eyed. "The only faintest memory I have of them is waving goodbye out that door and never coming back!"

"Arnold…I…I understand…" Helga couldn't find the right words.

"How Helga! How could you _possibly_ understand what I'm going through! I had to sell the only place I ever called a home just to survive. I may not even graduate this year Helga, another bullet into my back! I can't even afford to go college and make anything of myself, cause you need money to make money!"

"That's not true Arnold, and you know it's not. People have risen from nothing to become successful. You have many qualities to offer and you have to find the confidence in yourself to succeed."

"_Confidence_? Any hope and confidence I had was signed away when I sold the boarding house!" He really started sobbing now. "I hate my life Helga. I'm beat, I can't go on!"

"Don't say that!" Helga always thought this type of situation would be reserved, that _she_ would be on the verge of death and Arnold would have the good life. Things had panned out pretty well with Helga over the years, and when she _did_ hit a bumpy spot and needed help, Arnold was always there – until he started to change.

"I want to help you Arnold, just like you helped me."

"Then help me turn back the clock, Helga. Help me hold onto my parents, the boarding house…my life. I have no one." He turned his back to Helga, staring out the dirty window, "I might as well kill myself."

"Arnold, whether you like to admit it your not, _I_ was always there – I am still here! You know the way I feel about you, and that passion of desire has never faded. It's just, over the years, I felt I lost you – the real you." She placed her hand on his shoulder. "Help me to help you."

Arnold suddenly got goosebumps at the touch of another, something he wanted to feel for a long time, but quickly dismissed it. "I don't need anyone. I like being alone." he stubbornly spat.

"Arnold, I'm here for you!" She whipped him around, gripped his shoulders and glared him right in the eyes. Let me in!" her glossy blues commanded.

She slowly backed off, and let out her hand for comfort. They stood there for what seemed to be an hour. Helga looked straight at Arnold in anxiety, while Arnold stared pitifully at the floor while small tears slowly fell from his eyes. Arnold wanted to reach out to Helga in the worst way; he wanted to feel wanted. It was funny how the one thing that kept him barley clinging to life was now standing only a few feet away from him offering her hand in friendship. And now that she was here, he couldn't move – he was frozen by his own lack of self-confidence and trust.

"Arnold…" she stood, quivering hand still extended with tears now flowing down her soft, peachy like cheeks, "…help me to help you!"

And it was on that day, where Arnold felt the most extreme low – he felt the most extreme high. He took a step forward in the right direction. Toward help, health and happiness…toward Helga. He slowly took hold of her silky-smooth hand, and looked up to her caring face. He gripped onto her presence in a tight hug and wrapped himself into her warm and accepting embrace. Now he started to let it all out. 19 years of pain and anger started pouring out of Arnold's eyes.

"It's okay Arnold," she said as she caressed her hand over his head of cornflower hair, gently kissing him on the cheek, "it's gonna be okay."

o----o

_Do you ever feel like breaking down?  
Do you ever feel out of place?  
Like somehow you just don't belong  
And no one understands you_

_Do you ever wanna run away?  
Do you lock yourself in your room?  
With the radio on turned up so loud  
That no one hears you screaming_

_No you don't know what it's like  
When nothing feels alright  
You don't know what it's like to be like me_

_To be hurt  
To feel lost  
To be left out in the dark  
To be kicked  
When you're down  
To feel like you've been pushed around  
To be on the edge of breaking down  
When no one's there to save you  
No you don't know what it's like_

_Welcome to my life_

_Do you wanna be somebody else?  
Are you sick of feeling so left out?  
Are you desperate to find something more  
Before your life is over_

_Are you stuck inside a world you hate?  
Are you sick of everyone around?  
With the big fake smiles and stupid lies  
But deep inside you're bleeding_

_No you don't know what it's like  
When nothing feels alright  
You don't know what it's like to be like me_

_To be hurt  
To feel lost  
To be left out in the dark  
To be kicked  
When you're down  
To feel like you've been pushed around  
To be on the edge of breaking down  
When no one's there to save you  
No you don't know what it's like_

_Welcome to my life_

_No one ever lies straight to your face  
And no one ever stabbed you in the back  
You might think I'm happy  
But I'm not gonna be okay_

_Everybody always gave you what you wanted  
You never had to work it was always there  
You don't know what it's like  
What it's like_

_To be hurt  
To feel lost  
To be left out in the dark  
To be kicked  
When you're down  
To feel like you've been pushed around  
To be on the edge of breaking down  
When no one's there to save you  
No you don't know what it's like _

_To be hurt  
To feel lost  
To be left out in the dark  
To be kicked  
When you're down  
To feel like you've been pushed around  
To be on the edge of breaking down  
When no one's there to save you  
No you don't know what it's like_

_Welcome to my life_

_Welcome to my life_

_Welcome to my life_


End file.
